The Smart Meter - heart of our new electric system
New electronics are everywhere: Faster, wireless tablet computers; cell phones with e-mail, cameras and MP3 players; huge flat-panel televisions with three-dimensional viewing. Today’s advanced technology makes our lives easier, productive and more enjoyable.
Smart meters are no different. Many people don’t know much about these state-of-the-art devices, which has raised questions among the public about their reliability. Thing is, many people also do not know how MP3 players or a flat-panel televisions operate. But the popularity of those products is soaring.
About 40 million smart meters could replace traditional electric meters in homes across the country during the next five years. These new meters certainly earn their “smart” title by giving electric consumers vital information to control their power use and to reduce their utility bills like never before.
Smart meters wirelessly transmit power-use data to the utility every 15 minutes, providing near real-time information about electric use. That means you can monitor and control your electric use throughout the month rather than wait for the sometimes surprising electric bill to arrive in the mail weeks later.
Smart and Safe
Independent studies conclude that smart meters operate far below federal safety standards and also at a fraction of radio-frequency (RF) levels for cell phones, wireless computer networks and other commonly used devices. Although you may read opinions on the Internet questioning potential health concerns with smart meters and their use of RF data transmission, they are not rooted in scientific peer-reviewed studies. There have been no documented adverse health effects linked to smart meters. This fact does not deter the internet’s most alarmist voices, but we do hope it will give you comfort that Leesburg’s hometown electric utility would not subject residents to anything but the safest new technology.
We encourage our customers to become educated on this subject. If you would like to learn more, here are a few links for you to
check out.
Smart meters can help you to better budget your electric use and to budget money for your monthly utility bill. The meters also can help to identify activities around your home that use the most electricity.
Coupled with effective public information programs and
conservation initiatives, smart meters can help American households to reduce electric use by as much as 12 percent and save $35 billion over the next couple of decades, according to
a recent study by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.